Nielsen: KCRA, KOVR newscasts top ratings

KCRA Channel 3 maintained its dominance in the market for local television news during the November sweeps period, according to the Nielsen Co.

The November sweeps are seen by insiders as the most important of the year, so the ratings are of keen interest to bottom-line-conscious local stations.

Ratings track the percentage of TVs in the market tuned to a particular show. One rating point is worth 1 percent of households in the market.

With five stations going head-to-head for the 6 a.m. newscast, KCRA 3 won the household ratings by a wide margin, finishing with a rating of 5. KCRA widened its lead in the only time slot where all stations compete, beating its nearest competitor by more than four times its audience.

For the same time slot, KMAX Channel 31 earned a 1.1 and its sister station, KOVR Channel 13, earned a 0.8. KXTV Channel 10 earned a 0.9 and KTXL Fox 40 earned a 0.6.

KCRA 3 won the 11 p.m. news slot with a 4.2, where the station is in head-to-head competition with News 10, which earned a 2.7.

Kevin Walsh, general manager of KOVR-TV Channel 13 and KMAX-TV Channel 31, said it’s fair to compare the two late-news time slots. In that case, KOVR led all stations, including KCRA, in both households and in the 25-to-54 age group, the largest demographic and the one driving the station’s revenue base.

“I think it’s fair to look at the two,” Walsh said. “We look at everybody that has late news as competitors to us.”

There are four major rating periods a year. CBS 13 has been No. 1 for all late newscasts for the past few rating books, Walsh said.

“It’s been an evolving trend,” he said.

But KCRA 3 news director Anzio Williams believes it’s not fair to compare newscasts in different time slots, calling it an apples to oranges comparison. KCRA, he said, is the clear winner at 11 p.m., and splits its audience with the KCRA 3 Night Team at 11 and the KCRA 3 News at 10 on KQCA My58. When considering both time slots, Williams considers KCRA to still be the late-news leader — with a 4.2 on Channel 3 and 1.2 on My58 for a combined 5.4 rating.

“More people watch KCRA news in the evenings,” he said.

KCRA 3’s noon newscast also beat the competition.

“I believe in what we’re doing,” Williams said. “I think we have the best team in town and the best product.”

Interest in politics was high all year long, and KCRA 3 was the only station to air gubernatorial debates, Williams said. More than 1.5 million households watched the KCRA 3 gubernatorial debate at the University of California Davis, he said.